Q.  Hi! I was wondering what is the best way to explain the impact and “seriousness” of dropped arguments to a community judge. I’ve found that they don’t care too much (and I totally understand why- it seems like a technicality) but it would help us a way for it to make sense to them without pulling out the rule book.

A.  Sorry for the delay in answering - I was on vacation and then had some medical work done, so I’m just now getting a look at things here.

You’re right, a “rule book” approach isn’t the right answer.  The way to go is to think back to why the “stock issues” get raised in the first place.  I know they aren’t really popular with some folks, but these issues (like solvency, signficance, inherency, disadvantages) don’t go away just because they aren’t cool.    They exist in debate because they first existed in real life decision-making processes that we use every day.  Explain how the issue relates to the decision-making process and you can relate to the community judge better, because these issues are common in everyday life.

For example, if the dropped argument is a signficance argument, try relating back to why significance is important in the first place and what happens if it’s missing.  “Judge, they dropped our responses on significance in the first affirmative rebuttal.  Now, what this means is …”      And here you wax eloquent on why an Affirmative case has to deal with “significant” issues.

“One of the important principles of debate is that we have to be debating an issue that affects a significant number of people - because if not, then we’re wasting an hour and a half that we could have used to talk about something really important, or something that really matters to real people in the real world.  By wasting our time on insignificant matters, the Affirmative … ”

In other words, explain why the broader issue matters, not just the individual argument that was dropped.

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